Stomach surgery: the beginning

I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about some form of weight loss surgery many times over the years. Gastric surgery always seemed like a “last resort” to me, instead I’d tell myself to just try one more diet. One more diet… and then another one. By the age of 29 I’ve tried pretty much every diet you can think of – and I’ve spent a lot of money, not just on diets, but on healthcare related to my weight (reflux, PCOS etc). I’ve written a little bit about my past issues in my hypnotherapy background post here.

On Thursday last week I saw my Doctor regarding a random twitching in my right index finger, and she asked me how my weight loss was going. She sees me often enough to know that I’ve been the same size (give or take 10kgs) for the last 12 years – so there’s no “yeah it’s going fine” with her. I told her that, despite currently attending hypnotherapy, I’d put on 7 of the 10kgs I’d lost during my trip to South America, even though I’d been trying a high protein low carb diet and I’d been going to the gym. My problem, as always, was with portion control and binge eating – I just can’t seem to control myself. I have the will power of a three year old!!!

My Doctor asked me whether I had thought about stomach surgery before; I told her that I had. She said me that she wanted me to do it, that it’s what’s best for my health – I have fatty liver and (thanks to my PCOS) a possibility of diabetes in my future – and she wrote me a referral for Doctor Charlie Mosse at Canberra Bariatric on the spot.

I rang the next day and am booked in to the centre for a consult on the 10th of April, and will be attending an information session (hosted by the Doctors) to be held on the 7th. The receptionist told me that it would be about 6 weeks for my actual surgery, and that recovery would be a few weeks – this would take me in to the time I am supposed to be in Europe and it would mean that I won’t be well enough to travel – well, I might be, but I can’t guarantee it.

I’m also worried about the flight. Being my weight makes it really hard to fly – and given the length of the flight to Europe, I’d rather get my surgery done and then try again in a year or two. Also, let’s face it, I am annoying at music festivals – sore feet, wanting to sit down all the time etc – another reason I’d like to lose weight and then try again later. If I fly to Europe at the weight I am now, and then go to Glastonbury – I’m not going to have a good time.

And then if I wait until after Europe, there’s still my best friend’s wedding in September (for which I am a Bridesmaid, so best not to be recovering from surgery) and that would push the date back to October, and I don’t want to wait that long. Now that I know it’s happening, I just can’t wait to do it and re-start my life.

So – I’m no longer going to Europe in the middle of the year. I am upset about that, but the excitement I feel about being healthy outweighs the sadness tenfold. It’s full steam ahead with the stomach surgery. I won’t know what exact date my surgery is, or even which type of surgery I am getting, until the 10th.

I’m going to keep going with my hypnotherapy too – because despite having a smaller stomach, I’ll still have the habits that lead to my overeating in the first place, and those need to stop. Even after I got the news, I started asking everyone to come out to dinner with me so I could eat as much food as I can before the surgery!

I want to blog about my experience, because I’ve found that reading other people’s blogs has helped reassure me that this is the best option for me – and the results I’ve seen from others has made me optimistic about my own outcomes.

I’ve also started writing up some FAQ of questions that I would like to ask, so that after the surgery I can answer these for someone else – these will be posted a few weeks after my surgery. I’ll also be keeping stats with these posts, to see my progress.

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3 thoughts on “Stomach surgery: the beginning”

This is a huge decision that you have made and I can only encourage you to do your research and ask as many questions as you can think of at the patient education night and all your subsequent appointments.
I had gastric banding with Dr Mosse over 4 years ago and it completely changed my life. I was a tired, depressed 131kg woman who at 25years old felt like she has 70. Now I am under 70kg and a size 10-12kg who is the healthiest I have ever been. My PCOS has settled, I no longer need steroids for asthma in winter, in not pre-diabetic, I cancelled my knee surgery, and last year ran a half marathon. Life is brilliant.

I will not lie, this is not an easy solution, there are times even today, all this time down the road when I have rough days where I cant eat the foods I want to, or I eat something that doesn’t sit right and I’m unwell. I also attend the gym 8 times a week. You will still have to work at this- people will tell you that it is an easy fix but it really isnt. It won’t change who you are or your attitude to food.

After I had my gastric band, my mum and best friend also had weight surgery. They both had the gastric sleeve which is now much more popular than the band and accounts for about 80% of all the gastric surgeries they do now.

I can only speak from experience, but if you have the sleeve you will not be well enough to go to Europe or even want to go! The sleeve is a pretty big operation (but with big results) and it hit my mum and friend for a bit of a six. The eating plan during the first 4-6 weeks of recovery for sleeve and band is also pretty tedious, liquids, blended foods, mushies, then soft normal foods, then transition to full normal food. You might be sad about your trip now but your making an investment in your health.

I signed up for my surgery but then because of my health insurance cover had to wait another 12mths…. I found this a really valuable period of time to do my research and make sure I was mentally ready. Because even though I was physically restricted from eating, I wanted to try and get my head in the right space so that I didn’t sabotage myself down the road.

It’s been a long exciting journey for me, and my family and friends since my surgery. I would be more than happy to have a coffee with you and answer any and all questions you might have at all!

You do have it in you to change. I didn’t think I had it until I read some resources on willpower, and set myself some health challenges and propelled myself forward to achieve the goals. It all snowballed from there, really.